


Sunrise Cove Obsession

by smalltrolven



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Meant To Be, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Separated Winchesters, beyond awful john winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:03:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7364308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the boys are forcibly separated at twelve and eight by a father gone mad their lives take very different turns. When they are then reunited fifteen years later, they don’t recognize each other. Dean’s promise to stay away from Sam even though unwittingly broken brings a danger back that may kill them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Beyond Awful!John Winchester  
> Not my characters, only my words. Written for spn-meanttobe 2016.

Hawkin's Oyster House  


~~~

The root cellar smelled worse than it should have. Rot, decay, and something close to death assaulted his nose as he crept down the rickety stairs. The hush under the earth was like a blanket over the rest of his senses. He struggled to see around the corner towards the flickering light. There was a quick motion and sound, maybe human, maybe not. Dean’s eyes were drawn towards the glow of the candles circling the body on the floor, the strange symbols and markings drawn in a glistening deep red on the dirt floor. He struggled to focus on anything else besides that light. The motion again, now familiar, something he’d seen all his life, his father, raising a hand to strike the body, which now squirmed in his father’s grasp.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Dean said, pitching his voice as low and growly as possible, hoping his father wouldn’t recognize it right away.

“Dean, impressive, guess I trained you too well,” John said, still holding onto the figure by the throat.

The gasps from the person reached Dean’s ears, growing weaker and weaker as they struggled for breath.

“Dad, you don’t want to do this. I know you don’t,” Dean said, gun wavering from where it was trained over his father’s heart. _I’m just barely twelve can’t do this can’t do this,_ repeating on a loop in his head. He tried to shut up that inner voice and concentrated on holding the gun steady, just like his dad had taught him.

“You’re not gonna shoot me, son. So just stow it. You’ve got no idea what’s inside her, it’s gonna talk, I’m gonna make it talk. This demon’s gonna tell me what I need to know, right?” John growled into the face of the person he was choking.

The candlelight flashed just right and Dean could see who it was. It would have been bad enough if it was just a stranger, but this was, Jo. She was practically his little sister. His heart contracted at the thought that crashed into him: _Sam would never survive the loss of her_. “Dad, c’mon, it’s just Jo, I can see her from here. Let her go—now.”

“No can do. I know it looks like Jo, but there’s a demon inside her, boy. I’m just testing it right now, we gotta see how strong this demon really is,” John let go of Jo’s throat abruptly and she slammed to the ground, her small body going limp and still.

Dean hoped that he really saw her chest was still moving slightly, that he wasn’t just making that up to feel better. His father splashed her slack face with water out of a silver flask. There was no reaction, nothing.

“See, Dad. Not a demon, it would hiss and steam, right? Isn’t that what you said? So, just, please, let me take her out of here. We’ll find the demon you’re after, the one that killed mom, I’ll help you. I’ll always help you, Dad. Let me help you, please,” Dean said, stepping closer with each word, slow and steady and hopefully unnoticeable.

“Just stop right there, Dean. Some demons are strong enough to resist the holy water. Need to cut her a few times,” John said, pulling a shining silver knife out of his belt.

“No, Dad, just please stop. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I can’t let you cut Jo,” Dean said, now within a few steps of Jo. He could see her eyes fluttering like she was coming out of it, not much time then. He crouched to the dirt floor, grabbed up some of the loose, sandy soil and burst back upwards flinging it into his father’s wide staring eyes.

John’s hands flew to his face and stepped backwards unsteadily knocking over a candle. The flame leapt up, greedy for fuel, catching the hem of his jeans and flaring into more light, John crashed to the floor and fell into one of the other candles. Dean took advantage of the distraction and scooped Jo up from the center of the remaining candles. He was so glad she weighed less than his Sammy. He backed quickly towards the stairs, gun still pointing at his father.

John had recovered and strode forward, his face an unrecognizable mask of unhinged fury. “You will not take my chance from me, boy!” he roared.

One step, up another, John’s hands reached forward to trip him, Dean fired behind him as he jumped up to the next step, turned and ran up the rest. He heard his father cry out and fall down the stairs, then go quiet. Dean got Jo up the rest of the way out of the root cellar. Laid her down gently as possible in the dew-wet grass near the entrance. He stepped back down the stairs, just to check, he had to see, had to know what he’d done.

John lay at the bottom of the flight of stairs, one leg at an impossible angle. His eyes glittered in the small light from the remaining candles. His pant leg and jacket still smoking and charred. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Dean. She’s a  fucking demon, just like the one that took your mother.”

“No, Dad, she’s not, it’s just Jo, just plain Jo. And I can’t let you hurt her. I’m just going to take her somewhere safe. Then I’ll come back and we can talk.”

“No, if you leave with her, you don’t ever come back, boy. If you do I’ll kill Sam. Just like I should have. If I ever see you near us, I will kill that boy.”

That’s about the only thing that could possibly stop him, and John knew that of course. Sam was his. Has been since the moment John put him in his arms to save him from the fire. Sam has been his life, his everything. But Sam would never forgive him if he let something happen to Jo. She was like their sister, especially to Sam because they were so close in age. He smiled internally at the images of the two crazy-hair kids running through the woods behind the Roadhouse chasing butterflies.

The memory of Sam and Jo’s smiles that day decide him. “No, Dad, you can’t.”

“You leave now, you betray me like this, then I’ll take away the only thing you’ve got, this family. And if you ever come near him again, I will kill Sam. Understand me, boy?”

Dean gulped and swallowed his fear, tried to stand up taller, tried to convince himself that this was the right thing to do. Sam would want him to save Jo.

“If I stay away, you won’t hurt, Sammy?” Dean asked, knowing that it was likely a stupid decision to make a deal with someone who’d obviously gone crazy. But what other options did he really have?

John screwed up his face in disgust, “No I won’t hurt your precious Sammy, damn your stupid priorities, Dean. He’ll be fine, he’ll be safe if you just stay away.”

~~Now~~

Sam readjusted his grip on the claw hammer and leaned farther out over the water to reach the underside of the pier. He drew back and hit the rotten wood hard and it collapsed, which put him off balance and then he was under the water, sputtering and splashing and getting pulled out towards the open sea channel with the strong afternoon rip tide. His heavy work boots, the denim coveralls and the stupid hammer were weighing him down, making it hard to stay afloat, much less swim back to the stupid broken dock. From here, he could see how hopeless it had been to even try and fix the thing. Out of the corner of his salt-watery eye he saw movement, a small motorboat tacking towards him, with a figure waving.

He stuck a hand up and the figure grabbed onto him as the small boat slowed to a stop. Sam was hoisted up by strong arms ending up a wet mess practically in the lap of his rescuer. He wiped the salt water out of his eyes and looked up to see who was strong enough to pull him straight up out of the water like that. And the eyes that met his were this unreal combination of shades of brilliant green and gold that caught all of the afternoon light, focusing it all in their sparkling depths shining it all back on him like he was under the microscope back in his college labs.

“You okay?” the man asked from his perfectly, pink plush lips. Sam shook his head, the water droplets flying all about, landing on the man who laughed. He helped Sam sit up on his own and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thought you were going down for the count, dude.”

The man had barely stopped talking when Sam was back in his arms again as the small craft was nearly swamped by the wake of one of the fishing boats coming back into harbor. Knocked together, face to face, Sam could see this man was the most beautiful person he’d ever laid eyes on. Eyes, god those eyes, he’d always loved green eyes. He was swamped with the feelings of loss that thinking about green eyes always brought. He scrambled back out of the man’s arms and perched on the bench across from him.

“Thanks! I was fixing my dock and then I fell in and I was going down. You saved me.”

“You probably would have been fine, you look like you have the shoulders of a good swimmer. I was just trying to be neighborly and all.”

“You’re not from around here are you?” Sam asked, wondering what the man’s accent meant, he sounded like he was from the East coast.

“Nope, just moved here,” the man said, extending one hand, shaking Sam’s slowly. “Name’s William Bowes , you can call me Will if you like.”

“Hi, uh, Will. I’m Alexander Hawkins, call me Xander. It’s nice to uh…get saved by you.” Sam wasn’t sure why he’d used the name, the one that he’d said he was done pretending with, but it was habit, thirteen long years of habit, of hiding under the protection the name had meant. He finally released Will’s hand and his whole body tingled with this strange flush of recognition.

“So, Xander, you want me to motor up to this dock of yours? So you can go get into something dry?” Will asked, green eyes twinkling with amusement.

Sam patted at his drenched coverall and felt its suffocating weight again. He unzipped it and shrugged out of the top half, wrapping the arms in a knot at his slim waist. He felt Will’s eyes on his bare torso and it felt good, warm, and more than a little friendly to be admired like this. 

“I was right about those swimmer’s shoulders, wow, you are built, aren’t you?” Will asked, eyes still wide in admiration.

“Oh…I uh, I swam in college,” Sam said, shrugging and trying not to flame bright with embarrassment at the frank appraisal.

“My college didn’t have a pool. Just vats of developer. I went to Parsons for photography, in New York City,” Will said.

“Wow, really? I’ve always wanted to go there, not…uh to Parson, but the city,” Sam said.

“It’s a big place, but it was really too crowded for me. That’s a big part of why I’ve moved out here.”

“That’s going to be a switch,” Sam said.

“That is in fact, my plan. Change everything hopefully, anyway, here you go,” Will said, pulling up to the decrepit dock. “Hey, are you sure that thing is even safe to walk on?”

“No, I’m not. Which is one of the reasons I was trying to fix it!” Sam snarked as he clambered back up onto the dock.

“Xander! You okay?” a woman yelled from the end of the dock. Sam looked towards her.

“Yeah, Annie, I’m fine,” Sam yelled back. “Stay off of the dock!”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to…well, see you around,” Will said, backing his motorboat away from the dock and zooming out towards the open water. 

Sam stood there and watched him go, hoping it wouldn’t be too long before their paths crossed again. And that he’d be dry, and have all his clothes on. Well, maybe not for the whole time— Annie’s voice interrupted his thoughts again.

“Xander, dude, what happened?” 

“Oh, I was leaning out, trying to get to the underside of the dock, and I overbalanced and fell in. That guy pulled me out of the water.”

“Well, who was he?” she asked.

“New guy who just moved here, Will Bowes.”

“He sure is pretty,” Annie teased.

“Annie, you can’t go around calling men pretty like that. It pisses people off.”

“Hey, I call ‘em like I see ‘em. And that was probably one of the prettiest _people_ I’ve ever seen. I can tell by your face that you agree, so don’t even front, dude. Big sister knows what she knows, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, but have you cooked anything for dinner yet?”

“Shit, Xan, you’ve been back, what a week, and you’re already demanding dinner every freakin’ night.”

“What can I say, I missed home-cooking,” Sam said.

“I’m running the whole freakin’ restaurant on my own and you’re just as damn lazy as ever,” Annie said with a smile that said she knew that was Sam telling her he missed her.

~~Then~~

Dean’s only thoughts as he carried Jo away from the root cellar were that Sam would want this. Would want him to make sure Jo was okay, was safe from their Dad. He carried her over his shoulders the mile or so back to the Roadhouse. Ellen and Bill Harvelle both dropped what they were doing when he appeared at the back door.

“What happened? Dean, are you okay?” Ellen asked as she ran panicked hands over Jo’s limp body.

“My dad, he’s…he went crazy or something. Had Jo in this cellar, I think he was exorcising her, he kept saying she was a demon, he was gonna kill her,” Dean answered, shaking hands covering his face. “Sammy, I need to see him.”

“He’s not here, son,” Bill said. “Ash said your dad just called and picked Sam up a few minutes ago.”

“Did you see him?” Dean asked.

“No, I didn’t. Did you El?” Bill asked. Ellen shook her head in answer, still holding on so tightly to Jo that he knuckles were white.

“Dean, if your dad did this, we need to get you and Sam somewhere safe. You understand that, right?” Bill asked.

Dean nodded and stared at Jo’s slack face, trying to picture what was happening to Sam right now. He had to be okay, his dad had promised. But his dad was officially nuts now. “My dad promised he wouldn’t hurt Sammy if I stayed away from them. I had to…had to hurt my dad to make him stop hurting Jo. He had a knife to her throat…he was gonna…”

“Dean, you did the right thing, you saved my daughter. I’ll make some calls, I promise you and Sam will both be okay. We owe you, son, big time,” Bill said, squeezing one big hand on Dean’s shoulder. 

Dean couldn’t answer, just nodded and thought about his father and that big silver knife and his brother riding in the car alone with him and his crazy. Not even knowing where Dean was. He closed his eyes and tried to picture himself holding Sam, keeping him in the safe circle of his arms where he belonged. He could hear Bill talking to people on the phone. Things got a little heated and then everything was dropped when Jo finally woke up. She was terrified, but she calmed down when she realized it was just her mom holding her. She confirmed everything Dean had said and started crying when she saw Dean sitting there.

“Sam? Where’s Sam?” Jo asked, she trembled in Ellen’s arms.

Bill hung up his last phone call and came back into the room. He pulled Jo up into a hug. “He’s safe, Bobby’s got him away from John. Okay, Jo? He’s safe, I swear.”

“Bobby has Sammy?” Dean asked, his heart leaping with hope.

“Yeah, son, he’s got him and he’s on his way to take him to a family that…”

Dean covered his ears and interrupted Bill, “Don’t tell me, please, sir. I can’t know. If Dad ever…”

“Okay, Dean, I get it. You are such a little hero, your daddy did something right with you,” Bill said, eyes shining with admiration. 

Dean didn’t know how to answer something like that so he didn’t. He yawned widely, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. Ellen noticed and led him off to the room he usually bunked in with Sam when they visited. She got him set up with an old sweatshirt of Bill’s to sleep in since John had taken the boy’s duffel bag. 

“Just for tonight, hon. We’ll get you some stuff that fits tomorrow, okay?” Ellen asked, smoothing Dean’s hair down as he tried to get comfortable in the bed.

Dean didn’t say anything, he just wanted to be alone. Ellen took the hint of his silence and left. “It’s all gonna work out, Dean. You get some sleep,” she said, closing the door. Dean tried to sleep but all that came was tears. He realized he was never going to see his brother again. Never hold him, tease him, see his stupid dimples, never have to pull his hands away from his own skin where they traced out his freckles. He felt a new emptiness yawn deep inside, the lost feeling welling up and overtaking him. His tears finally flowed then, he cried until he fell asleep exhausted from the terror and loss.

~~Now~~

Sam was pulling out of Vern’s Ace hardware store when he saw Will driving up. They paused in the driveway and smiled at each other through their truck windows. Sam was driving the Hawkin’s Oyster truck, a big Ford F350, much higher than the smaller Toyota that Will was in. Will looked up at him with a smile brighter than all the June sunshine.

“Hey there, Xander, was hoping I’d see you again.”

“Hi, Will, me too, good to see you too.”

“You got time for a cup of coffee?” Will asked.

Someone honked behind Sam which startled him into lurching forward. He leaned back out of the window and yelled,“Yeah, I’ll go around the block, give me a sec.” He pulled out and drove around the block, his heart pounding with excitement. Sam laughed at himself, _it’s only coffee._

Will was leaning up against his small red truck, arms crossed, showing off those muscular biceps that had pulled Sam out of the water. Sam parked and locked up the truck, and tried not to walk too fast towards him. Will was smiling wide and friendly.

“Hey, I’m sorry I made that crack about your dock. And then I just split because your girl was calling you.”

“What? Hey no worries, that thing’s been on the to-fix list as long as I can remember, way before I left for college. We just never got around to it. But now that I’m back for good, I’m getting to it.”

“You’re back here for good? Where were you then?” Will asked.

“I was at college, Stanford. Just graduated little more than a month ago,” Sam leaned up against the truck next to Will and was pleased to see his body turn towards him.

“What’s a Stanford grad going to do in this place?” Will teased.

“Hey! This is my home town, man. And I’m taking over the family business with my big sister. She’s the one that you saw on the dock.”

“Sorry, god I keep saying this stuff,” Will said, one hand clasping the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Sam bumped his shoulder into Will’s. “Naw, I’m just kidding you, I’m not offended, I swear. The Hawkins Oyster Company, that my dad’s father founded is getting pulled into the 21st century with all the stuff I learned at school. ”

“Oh yeah, I saw the sign on your truck. That’s going to be a big job.”

“It’ll keep me out of trouble, but Annie says she’ll believe it when she sees it,” Sam said.

“So, uh, is Annie your sister or your girlfriend?” Will asked, sounding hesitant and hopeful.

“She’s my big sister, and I don’t exactly do girlfriends,” Sam said, hoping that he was reading the situation even close to accurately.

“Same here, you still want to go get that coffee?” Will asked with an impossibly wider smile.

“Absolutely, but I only have about a half hour, got a date with a contractor,” Sam said.

“A date?” Will asked, sounding disappointed.

“No, uh, not a date, more like an appointment with doom, it’s gonna be a pile of money to get the work on the dock done,” Sam said.

Peggy Morgan at the Blue Mug tried to catch Sam’s attention while they were ordering at the counter, but Sam managed to ignore her. The owner of the cafe, old Frank Morgan was more successful as he bussed the tables near them. 

  
“Hey, Xander, bringing in one of your college friends?” Frank asked, raising his bristly white eyebrows at Xander.

“No, Mr. Morgan, this is someone new to town, meet William Bowes,” Sam said, gesturing across the small table at Will.

“Oh, so you’re the fella that bought the Jorgensen estate up at the top of the cove? Nice to meet you,” Frank said, extending his hand to shake.

Will shook hands and smiled, winking at Sam out of Frank’s eyesight. “Yes, sir, that’s me.”

“You going to fix up that old place? Sure would be a shame to tear it down,” Frank said, leaning on the back of Sam’s chair.

“Definitely my plan, sir. I’ve always wanted to rehab an old beauty like her,” Will answered.

“Glad to hear it, son. Let me know if you need any ideas about restoration, I’ve got a memory about how all of that looked way back when. Grew up playing on the estate when my mama worked for the Jorgensens,” Frank said.  Peggy called over from the counter and Frank waved at her. “I gotta go get this into the washer before the lunch rush, good to meet you, Will. Good luck keeping Xander out of trouble, you hear?” The old man tottered off with the full weight of the busing tray.

“So now I get to keep you out of trouble, Xander, well I wouldn’t want to disappoint Frank, now would I?” Will said with a salacious tease in his voice.

Sam tried and failed to suppress a laugh and ended up spilling most of his remaining coffee. It flowed across the table towards Will and he scrambled to mop it up before it went over the edge. Their hands met as they swiped at the coffee with wads of paper napkins and Sam felt that shiver of strange rightness flow through him again like he’d felt when he’d been in Will’s arms in the boat. Almost like his body recognized or remembered Will somehow. They grinned at each other as they reluctantly pulled back from the contact. 

~~Then~~

Dean was kept informed of Sam’s progress in school by the Harvelle’s but he didn’t let them tell him any detail about where Sam lived. He just wanted him to be safe and away from John. It hurts more than anything to be separated from Sam, and he knows his little brother must be so confused about why he’s gone, but it has to be this way. All he has to do is remember the malice in John’s promise about killing Sam. He knows his father all too well, that if he does anything, he’ll keep a promise like that.

One of Bill Harvelle’s older brothers, David was a childless, high-powered New York City lawyer who owed his little brother for something hunting related that Dean never quite got the whole story on. David Harvelle took Dean in, and pushed and prodded him to succeed all the way through high school. He kept Dean so busy with trips and meeting people and endless activities that Dean didn’t ever have time to wallow in his sorrow at missing his little brother. David was so proud of the grit and determination that Dean demonstrated that he sent Dean to college where he chose an art photography major at Parsons in New York City. 

Dean threw himself into college life and tried his best to forget all about his brother, but he couldn’t ever stop pining and channeled all the longing and heartbreak into his photos that were immediately recognized as something beyond the normal student art photographs. He got signed with one of the top art dealers in the city right after his first student exhibit. Dean made more than a million dollars in just his first year of selling his art.

~~Now~~

“Where are you going now, Xan?” Annie asked, hands on her hips as she leaned against the front counter of their restaurant.

Sam tried to shrug as unconcernedly as possible and not look her in the eye, because she would know. She always knew. “I’m going to meet Will, he’s taking me to see a movie tonight. I put it on the calendar.”

“You are kidding, right? The Morgans are throwing Frank’s retirement party tonight. We’re gonna be swamped. You promised to help out, remember?” 

“Annie, I’m sorry, it’s Will and you know how…” Sam trailed off, embarrassed to be discussing his love life (or lack of one) with his sister.

“Awww, you go on and get your lover boy, I’ll call Melody in, she’s been wanting more hours,” Annie said, cupping her hand around Sam’s neck to pull him down so she could kiss him on the cheek. “Good luck, tiger.”

Sam kissed her back and gave her a short hug. “You’re the best, Annie. I’d say don’t wait up, but who knows, right?”

Annie’s laughter rang out and faded as he speed-walked to the truck. This was his first real date with Will, and he hoped things would progress, but he didn’t really expect anything or want to push it. He wanted to take things slow with Will, savor the slow build of getting know him, inside and out. There were a lot of layers to the man, beyond the surface hotness, the dry humor, there was his artistic side that Sam had found by googling him. 

The galleries of Will’s photos he’d seen online had practically broken his heart, they were wrenching, so emotion-packed and yet lyrically beautiful. They were like looking into the most broken soul you could imagine that still refused to give up on the beauty of life. Sam wanted to know _that_ man, the one who made that art, and he wanted to know where it came from.

Sam couldn’t tell you what movie they ended up seeing, because he wasn’t paying one bit of attention to it. All of his focus was on the man next to him, his nearness was tantalizing and comforting at the same time. Sam knew he was being obvious, staring too much, but Will didn’t seem to mind. He just kept smiling and bumping their knees or shoulders together. Their hands tangled in the popcorn bucket a few times and Sam was glad he was sitting down. So this was what ‘weak in the knees’ felt like. He felt like an eighth grader on his first date, it was ridiculous. But Will was worth all of it. 

When he walked Sam to his truck, Will briefly hugged him close, lips buzzing past the skin of Sam’s cheek.  The scent of him and the feel of his strong body in his arms made him feel ten feet tall. Will was all he could think of for the next few days, between all the modifications to their oyster operations, he should have been too busy to mope around after this guy. But Will wasn’t just some guy, he was something special, he made Sam feel hopeful, like there was a point to the future. And Sam hadn’t felt that since he was safe in his brother’s arms.

~~Then~~

After graduating from Parsons, Dean had even more time to spend on making new images and his work got exponentially more popular. He started getting written up in all sorts of media, some of it going national instead of local, because the New York City art world had always been the epicenter of the art world. Dean let his success overwhelm him for a little while, forgetting that he should be lying as low as possible, but it was too tempting when he got invited to one glittering party after another. He didn’t turn into a party boy or anything, but he was going down that path of just not caring who was in his bed or drinking all his booze.

All of that ended abruptly when he got an early morning phone call that had him scrambling for his cell in the bedcovers. The caller just breathed heavily for a bit and didn’t say anything. 

“Not impressed, buddy,” Dean said into his cell, and was just about to push the end call button when he heard a familiar deep chuckle.

“Dad?” Dean asked, his voice sounding like the small boy he’d been the last time he’d seen his father.

“Yeah, it’s me, Dean. I see you’re making a new name for yourself, William Bowes, huh? Famous art photographer, who knew you’d end up being a weak ass, artsy-fartsy city boy?”

“How’d you find me?” Dean asked, his stomach sinking as his thoughts worried about Sam.

“Oh you were plenty easy to find, what with your pretty face all over the tabloids, it’s Sammy that’s the hard part,” John said.

“I stayed away from him, all this time. I swear I did. Please, please don’t hurt him, Dad,” Dean said, not caring that he was begging.

“I’m glad you got separated from that abomination, he was always going to corrupt you eventually,” John snarled.

“Dad, don’t talk about Sam like that,” Dean said.

“I’ll talk about him however I like! He’s the reason she’s gone! He’s the reason you don’t have a family!” John shouted, the phone vibrating with all the hate coming from his father. “You tell me where he is, right now!”

“I don’t know where Sam is. I never knew where he went after…uh, on purpose.”

“And the Harvelles and Bobby are nowhere to be found, still, after all these years,” John said.

Dean smiled at the thought of the Harvelles and Bobby being smart enough to outwit John and stay hidden all these years. 

“See, I did teach you a thing or two, boy. I already figured you didn’t know where Sam was, I was just calling to remind you of something. Just because you’re successful, don’t get cute and try and find Sam now. If he sees you in the papers or online he might contact you, so if I were you, I’d just stop all of this now before you get more famous. You stay away from him, or I promise you, he will be dead before you can snap another of your stupid pictures!”

“I will, Dad, I promise,” Dean said, his heart pounding out of his chest at the thought of harm coming to Sam after all these years of safety.

The phone went dead then, and Dean knew he had to change everything about his life. _Again._ It had always been about keeping Sam safe, and it always would be. He owed it to his brother that he’d lost.


	2. Chapter 2

  
Sunset from Dean's place, formerly the Jorgensen Estate

~~Now~~  


It seemed like every time he turned around he was running into Will. Not that Sam minded, or that it was a problem because Will was kinda-sort his boyfriend, and beautiful, and funny and the sexiest thing on two legs in this town. Just ask Annie, or any of her girlfriends, they kept pushing the whole true love meant-to-be thing at him. Just because they were the only two young gay dudes in Sunrise Cove didn’t mean anything. But it kind of did. Because Sam knew he’d fallen for Will. _Hard._ And he couldn’t tell exactly, but he hoped that Will felt the same way.

Another afternoon ‘chance meeting’ in town led to an impromptu picnic dinner out on the back lawn at Will’s house. The whole interior of the enormous old house was in absolute chaos so they sat out on the unkempt, long grass on a scratchy red plaid blanket looking out over the choppy afternoon water. Sam hadn’t felt this settled and happy in a long time. He tried to catalog everything about this moment, the sun on his bare shoulders, the light breeze smelling of ocean salt keeping them cool, the taste of the micro-brew that Will insisted on buying at the market, the feel of Will’s bare shoulder against his own. How Will’s eyes and freckled broad shoulders made him feel so ridiculously safe and turned-on at the same time.

“You’re purring, Xander,”

“Shut up, dude. I’m happy,” Sam said, the only hesitation he had was how much he wanted to tell Will his real name. But not now, he didn’t want to break this moment between them.

“So, you purr when you’re happy, ’s good to know,” Will teased.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” Sam said, pouting even though he knew it was stupid.

Will leaned in then and brought their lips together, shockingly soft and gentle for how much it rocked Sam’s world. Sam kissed back with enthusiasm, his hands holding Will close so he couldn’t change his mind. They went without breath for as long as possible but then broke apart with hurried gasps.

“What was that for?” Sam asked with a small, hopeful grin.

“That pouty face of yours, I couldn’t resist when your lips looked like that,” Will admitted.

“Glad you didn’t. Resist, that is,” Sam said.

Will covered him then with his whole body laid out over Sam’s. Right there on the red plaid blanket, out under the setting sun, for the entire town to see if they happened to be sailing by. Sam melted up into Will’s heat and let himself come apart into all the broken pieces he’d been holding together ever since he’d moved here. Will held him, loved all the pieces and put him back together even better than he originally had been. Sam’s heart felt refilled, or re-made into something new, but somehow achingly familiar.

They were still lying on the blanket, most of their clothes still on, but their bodies entwined when the first stars came out. Neither of them knew what to say, but there wasn’t a need for words the second time Sam opened himself up to Will, bringing him into his body along with the cool of the summer evening. Will pounded into Sam in a rhythm that made Sam’s whole body shudder and jump with energy, delight and tension zinging up and down his spine with every thrust. He cried out with pleasure as he reached the pinnacle, clenching tightly to hold Will deep within his body.

Will was bundling him into the house the next thing he knew, rolling him down into the softest bed he’d ever felt in his life. He stretched and yawned like a cat, feeling the smooth luxury of the elegant sheets against his naked skin. Will stood in the bathroom doorway watching him with hooded eyes. Their third time that night began as Will slowly opened himself up under Sam’s watchful eyes. He rode Sam slowly at first, deliberate in his movements like he wanted to make it last as long as possible. 

When Sam finally got too frustrated with the pace, he flipped them both over and pinned Will’s wrists above his head with one hand, the other sliding around Will’s hardness until he writhed so beautifully Sam was barely able to hold off coming right then and there. 

Will’s eyes widened as he saw Sam’s near-loss of control. “Xan, you don’t have to stop. Want you to come in me. C’mon, make me yours.”

Sam couldn’t think of anything he wanted more then, except that he wanted to hear Will say his real name, wanted him to scream it out as he made him come again. “It’s Sam, my name, call me Sam, please.”

So Will did, calling out Sam’s name over and over again in a beautifully pleading voice, begging for more and more, until he came all over their bellies, clenching hard all around Sam, milking him for everything that was left. 

A whispered, ‘Sam’ was the last thing he heard as he drifted off to sleep in Will’s arms feeling more complete and safer than he ever thought possible.

~~Then~ 

Sam never knew a thing about hunting or that his brother was still alive.  That first night when John picked him up from the Roadhouse, John told him that his brother had died. Sam had barely had time to come to terms with that when he was dumped at Bobby’s a few days later and John left with no explanation. Sam didn’t know what to think. All he could do was cry for a while, because he had no Dean, no Dad, and Bobby was acting funny. Sam was just barely eight years old and everything he knew had changed in a week, he pulled into himself and survived on memories of Dean holding him close in the back seat of the Impala. 

Seeing how far gone John was when he’d shown up with Sam and claiming that Dean had died, Bobby knew he owed it to both the Harvelles and both brothers to help Sam disappear permanently into another family. Bobby had a hard month or two on the run with Sam, but he had to stay hidden from John, and he had to find somewhere safe for Sam to live. He ended up placing him with the Hawkins out in Washington. He and Rufus had saved their family on a hunt ten years ago and so they owed him. They had a daughter, Annie who was just about Dean’s age, and Bobby thought it would be a good thing for Sam to at least have an older sibling. Not that she could ever replace Dean in Sam’s life, but there was no help for that. Dean was gone somewhere only the Harvelles knew. 

Both he and the Harvelles hadn’t heard a peep from John so he was counting on it being safe for Sam to live as a Hawkins from there on out. As far as he knew, John had never even heard of them, because he and Rufus never talked about that case to other people. It was too painful to bring up their failures and it had been years before John had ever showed up at the Roadhouse the first time.

By the time Sam was left with the Hawkins, he was all cried out. He didn’t understand why Bobby had to leave him behind, so he stayed in his protective shell until Annie finally was able to break through to him with her persistent happiness. It was annoying and hard to ignore, so Sam tried his best to fit in with his new family, but it was hard to understand how different a normal life was from what his had been before. The Hawkins never went anywhere! They stayed put there on the Washington coast in a little town called Sunrise Cove and worked all the time in the family Oyster business. 

Sam went off to second grade that fall as a Hawkins. He changed his whole name when the Hawkins adopted him that summer. Even his first name, which was inspired by his favorite character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that Annie never missed an episode of and let him watch with her even though it was way too scary for him. Xander Hawkins was never a hunter, or a hunter’s kid, he had forgotten anything he had ever known about that and he nearly forgot he had an older brother. He felt guilty for being so happy at first, but then as he got a little older himself he realized that his long-dead brother would want him to be happy; that he’d always tried his best to make Sam happy. He didn’t miss his dad as much, and Bobby had told him that was okay, that his dad wasn’t ever coming back. 

~~Now~~

“I wish you’d tell me about your work sometime, Will,” Sam said. “Don’t you get tired of hearing about sustainable oyster production procedures from me?”

Will put down his oyster fork with a clatter and looked across the table at Sam. “Sam, it’s not something I do anymore. It’s complicated, the reasons I stopped, it’s all tangled up with why I moved here.”

Sam slid his hand across the table and stopped Will’s fidgeting hand, holding it tightly in his. “It’s okay, when you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be ready to listen. I’m sorry I pushed,” Sam said, pulling his hand away.

Will reached out and stopped him, tangling their fingers together. “I’m glad you did, I wouldn’t be here with you otherwise, right?”

Sam smiled at him then, suddenly realizing he’d never explained about his name and why it was Sam instead of Xander. But then Annie arrived with their soup and another round of beers which led to Will laughing so hard he turned beet red. It was so adorable Sam forgot all about it and just enjoyed being with this man that made him happier than anything had since he first met his new sister, Annie.

~~Then~~

Xander— _I’m still Sam Winchester too, no matter how far I bury him,_ he reminded himself every morning _—_ did so well all through school that he won most of the awards and scholarships the town’s small high school had and had his pick of full-ride offers to several great universities. He chose Stanford since it was the closest one to Washington, he didn’t want to go all the way across the country to the other Ivy League schools that were on his list. Unfortunately, Jamie and Lynne Hawkins both died in a freak boat accident a year before he graduated. His big sister, Annie insisted that he finish up his degree even though he wanted to come home and stay home. 

He finally did return to Sunrise Cove with Annie as she drove him back home after watching Sam graduate from Stanford. She helped him pack up his whole apartment and loaded it into the back of the Hawkins Oyster Company truck she had driven down to California. The whole way back home they talked about how he was going to put everything he’d learned in his environmental science/business degree program to help re-invigorate the family Oyster production business.

~~Now~~

The Sea Harvest Festival was a barely disguised excuse for the entire town of Sunrise Cove to put down their work for a couple of days and celebrate another year of pulling a living out of the sea. It was a small town affair complete with oyster and corn roasts, a small boat parade in the harbor with the year’s Sea Maid Queen being crowned atop the largest ship festooned with colorful banners. The closing festivities was a town dance party in front of the library/civic center. 

Sam paced in front of the Blue Mug coffee shop where they’d planned to meet at seven. It was now half past and Will wasn’t answering his texts or calls. Finally he heard running footsteps coming towards him along the dimly lit street, it had to be Will, everyone else was already at the town party. He was checking his hair in his reflection in the window when he was tackled by the runner, shoved straight through the plate glass into the tables and chairs. He hit the floor and skidded through the broken glass, feeling his palms go hot and wet. The man on top of him flipped him over onto his back. He screamed as the glass cut through his shirts into his back. Huge hands were around his throat and he struggled to push his attacker off of him. 

His vision was darkening around the edges, everything going hazy when the  tight hands were gone and so was the man. Sound came back to him and he heard a vicious fight going on towards the back of the cafe. The door to the back deck crashed open and the two figures moved through it as they struggled together.  He got up slowly, trying not to put his hands down on any more glass and then ran when he heard Will’s screams.

“No, Dad! Please, stop! I didn’t know it was him, we didn’t know, I swear!” Will yelled.

“Dean, I promised you I’d kill him. It’s your fault, not mine! He’s an abomination, you know he is!” the large man shouted as he held Will headfirst over the railing.

Sam’s mind couldn’t process all the words fast enough, he knew there was something there that was important. Something that he should know. But all he cared about was saving the man he loved. He rushed at the man with the large cast iron frying pan from the cafe kitchen, slamming it into his skull with all his might. The man slumped to the deck almost instantly, crumpling like a deflated punch clown. 

Sam heard a yelp and then a splash as Will hit the water down below the deck. He crouched down and checked the man’s pulse but wasn’t able to find one. He stood up and peered over the deck railing into the darkness of the water below hoping to see him. “Will? Will are you okay?” He heard splashing and then the sounds of someone climbing up the metal ladder. He rushed to open the gate and gathered Will into his arms. 

But it wasn’t Will he was holding, it was Dean. “Dean?” he asked softly.

The man in his arms trembled so hard that Sam thought he’d shake apart. “It’s okay, Dean. I’ve got you. We’re okay.”

“Sammy, I didn’t know. You have to believe me, I never meant to—“ Dean trailed off, looking around the deck wildly for a moment and then collapsing against Sam’s chest.

“So that was our Dad, huh?” Sam asked, nodding his head towards the unmoving lump on the deck. 

“Is he…dead?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. he is. God, Dean, I’m so sorry. I…I shouldn’t have hit him so hard. But I thought he was killing you, I couldn’t help myself because…” Sam found he couldn’t finish the sentence.

Dean held him tighter for a long moment where neither of them could breathe. “It’s okay, there is not a thing for you to be sorry for. He was batshit crazy, Sammy. He came here to kill you, just like he tried to kill Jo way back when. He made me promise to never see you again. Swore he’d know it if I ever did and come kill you wherever you were.”

“That makes so much more sense than anything Bobby ever told me. But I was just a kid, I didn’t really know.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you with me, Sammy. The Harvelles and Bobby, they were sure it’d be safer this way. I thought so too. I was just tryin’ to keep you safe, like I was supposed to.”

“You did, Dean. I am safe. I’m right here,” Sam said.

“You’re bleeding all over me though,” Dean said, let’s get something to wrap around your hands, okay?” Dean led Sam back into the cafe’s kitchen and found a stack of clean towels, he carefully wrapped them around Sam’s hand and tucked one in the back of his shirt where the bleeding was the worst.

Sam looked at him in the harsh kitchen light and saw the bruises around his neck. “He was choking you too, huh? Guess we match,” Sam said, trying to joke and grimacing.

“What do we tell people? How do we even begin to explain this, Sammy?”

“You keep saying my name like that,” Sam said.

“Now that I know that it’s you, it’s different,” Dean said. 

“Does this mean you don’t want to…be with me any more?” Sam asked, heart sinking into his stomach as he saw Dean’s face squirm with pain.

“Can we just do that? Isn’t it, wrong and incest and all that?” Dean asked.

“I don’t care, do you? We had no freaking clue, Dean. None at all. And I…well, I love you. More than anything, more than I could love you as just my brother. You’re more than that to me. I mean, I believed you were dead all this time! I’m just the orphan boy that got adopted into the Hawkins family, I don’t have a brother, remember? He died!” Sam yelled, throwing his arms open in a frustrated gesture.

Dean was trying to smile, Sam could see all the emotions warring on his face and finally they shuttered down into a placid, calm mask. “We need to call the police, and we need to have our stories straight before they get here. The rest of it…we’ll talk later, okay? I promise, Sammy.”

“Call me Sam. I’m not Sammy anymore, okay? Just Sam, the man who loves you, remember that, no matter what happens next, okay?”

It was a long night with the police and the hospital and explaining their story about the unknown stranger coming out of nowhere attacking both of them and ending up dead on the deck of the Blue Mug. Everyone seemed to buy their explanations, even Annie did, until she saw how sad Sam was once they got home and she was helping him to bed.

“Okay, it’s just us now, out with it.”

“I can’t right now, Annie, let me sleep,” Sam mumbled, turning his face away into his pillow.

“Is it about you and Will? Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t really know if there’s an ‘us guys’ anymore. Something about seeing me kill someone I guess,” Sam said, feeling dark and bitter inside all at once. He’d thought he was saving Dean’s life, was he supposed to just let him die, let his own father kill both of them?

“It’s probably just the shock of it all, give him some time,” Annie said, running her hand over the section of Sam’s un-bandaged hair she could reach.

Sam didn’t answer, he pretended to fall asleep until he actually did, dreaming all through the night of his father’s hands around his neck, until they changed into Dean’s holding him under the water. He just wanted to float there under the water forever where it was still and quiet. But something was tickling at the back of his neck. He swatted it away, but it came back. Finally he woke up enough to realize it was someone’s hot breath tickling the hairs on his neck.

“Sam, is this okay?” Dean whispered, his hand snaking under the waistband of Sam’s sleep pants. 

Sam groaned instead of answering as Dean wrapped his hand solid and sure around Sam’s morning wood. He jacked him slowly, whispering in his ear the whole time about how beautiful Sam was when he came, how much he wanted to feel him come. Dean’s hand sped up and Sam’s hips moved back pressing his ass into Dean’s own hardness.

“Now, Sam, come now,” Dean said as he thrust and ground into Sam’s ass cheeks.

Sam came hard and fast, smiling as he felt Dean’s release soak through the back of his sleep pants. “So you changed your mind, huh?”

“Yeah. That okay with you?” Dean asked, burying his face in the nape of Sam’s neck.

Sam turned in Dean’s arms and kissed him deeply. “More than okay.”

Annie is so happy for them that she brings them a breakfast tray before heading into the restaurant to get prepped for lunch.  “I’m happy for you guys. Will, this one has always been a handful, but he’s worth it.”

“Call me, Dean, okay Annie? William Bowes is my professional name, I’d rather go with the real deal, and that’s Dean Winchester if you don’t mind.”

Annie holds out her hand and shakes Dean’s up and down a few times. “Real pleased to meet ya, Dean Winchester.”

“And by the way, I’m back to going by Sam again,” Sam says, grinning up at his sister.

“Oh we’re back to that again, huh? Okay then, Sam and Dean, I’ll leave you two to get the breakfast dishes, right? See ya later!”

She was out the door in a flash before they could begin to answer. After they finished breakfast, Sam pulled the covers over both of them and then snuggled back in to get some more rest. They deserved it after the night of violence and revelations.

Before he fell all the way asleep he heard Dean whispering to him, “I love you too, Sammy, I always did.”

“I know Dean, me too,” said, kissing Dean’s temple and sighing into his hair. “I feel like I’m home again, finally.”

Dean didn’t say anything, just wrapped him up tighter and held him close, until their heartbeats slowed and the sound of the waves on the shore lulled them both back to sleep.

~~Ever After~~

They live happily ever after and help Annie run the Hawkin’s Oyster Restaurant together, filling it with Dean’s photography which he continues to sell under the William Bowes name when he feels like it. Sam runs the oyster farm production and expands it with all kinds of new environmentally sound practices. He moves into Dean’s house a few months before they get married. And yes, Sam changes his last name back to Winchester. 

Bobby and the Harvelles come to the wedding after a lot of heated phone conversations. It comes down to that they’re all just relieved that John is no longer a threat and that the boys are happy. It’s not something any of them would have chosen for them of course, but love is love wherever you can find it in their crazy world of hunters, demons and grief-mad fathers.


End file.
